The Center of the Universe — officially dubbed the Space Flight Operations Facility — controls NASA’s Deep Space Network, a system of 15 antennas strategically placed in three different locations around the world that control unmanned spacecraft.

The facility monitors signals being beamed from the space program’s star performers, including the Mars rover Curiosity, the Cassini orbiter exploring Saturn and its neighborhood, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, which follows Earth around the sun, collecting information on stars and galaxies.

The operations center landed a spot in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.